Not a day goes by without some comparison of our new president with another gentleman from Illinois. I must confess that I have long harbored the opinion that the two had more in common that the state that first sent them to Washington. I came to that impression during his speech at the Democratic Convention of 2004. In each man I saw the ability to respect the rights and principles of the opposition while fearlessly standing in opposition to the abuse of liberty.
When history is written, it seems likely that Obama’s speech in Boston will occupy the same niche in his biography as Lincoln’s Coopers Union Address does to the earlier president’s life history. If this be so, it may prove useful to remember the import of that speech delivered in New York almost a century and one half past.
In that speech Lincoln opens by quoting his opponent Steven Douglas’ recent statement.
"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."
What follows is a virtuoso unraveling of an oft repeated lie. Systematically and meticulously Lincoln exposes the falsity of the Douglas attempt to provide constitution protection for the unfettered expansion of slavery to the territories.
One may reasonably ask how an 148 year old speech against slavery can be relevant now. Where, one may wonder is the parallel. At its core the Coopers Union address is an unmasking of all the deceits of rhetoric heaped upon a patriotic and trusting people. And now, to those who regularly mutter "post hoc ergo propter hoc" at Sean Hannity, or call foul when Keith Olbermann disembowels straw men of his own making, it has become clear that rhetoric is currently employed not so much as a method of persuasion but a means of market segmentation. So then the question become, to what end is this conscious dilution of the common will. Which in turn prompts one to ask, were the fallacious arguments of slavery ever more than the rationalization of one entrenched power base to supplant the supremacy of another? Does our current red state blue state dichotomy serve our mutual interest or some less noble cause?
Recently several Republicans have claimed that every new job to be created in the proposed stimulous bill will cost the American taxpayer $250,000. Is this simple math or the math of a simpleton? By this same ratio and proportion one could take the cost of a $250,000 house, divide it by 5 laborers used in its construction and claim that on average each earned $50,000 as if all other elements of the project had been precipitated on the scene by divine will. Who gains by this sort of verbal legerdemain? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It is only Bernard Madoff.